Reader Richard R. Gerken of Comdisco Inc. was a bit shocked recently when he read the op-ed page of the Denver Post while on a holiday trip to Colorado. There was something strange about a column by Mr. Broder. In it, the pundit explained how three members of the House of Representatives from his native state were cast into the national spotlight during the interminable Clinton-Lewinsky matter.

Rep. Ray LaHood of Peoria presided over the House impeachment proceedings, Rep. Henry Hyde presented the case against the president and Rep. J. Dennis Hastert of Yorkville was elected speaker of the House. What was strange about the column was the headline. It read: "Hoosiers in charge."

We have always heard about self-important New Yorkers who identify the Midwest as anything between central Pennsylvania and western Nevada. To them, Chicago is a 30-minute drive from Los Angeles. Now, it appears that the same myopia has migrated westward to Colorado. There is a tremendous difference between Indiana and Illinois, but I guess it isn't very important when you are as far away as Denver.

By the way, do you know who writes headlines that are put on syndicated columns? That's usually done by copy editors . . . whose main job is to make sure errors don't get into the newspapers.

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Who's your mommy? March officially is designated Women's History Month, prompting the U.S. Census Bureau to issue a report on the status of women in the workplace. Among the findings:

* Of the 3.7 million women who had babies in 1995, 55% returned to the labor force before the child was 1 year old. Among women with college degrees, 68% returned to work in the first year.

* The earnings disparity between men and women continues to shrink. Women made 74 cents for each dollar earned by men in 1997, compared with 1973, when they made 57 cents.

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The accidental journalist (interesting facts learned by accident). In judging a competition for the American Business Press, these figures piqued my interest:

* A survey by Seafood Business shows that 34% of seafood sold in stores and restaurants is mislabeled. The percentages are worse for such varieties as perch (79% mislabeled), cod (68%) and snapper (62%).

* An article in GPS World notes that Antarctica is the coldest, driest, highest and windiest continent on earth. The continent's annual mean temperature is -57 degrees Celsius; winds are regularly recorded at 200 knots per hour; average elevation is 2,000 meters, and the interior "desert" receives less than five centimeters of precipitation a year -- all snow.

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Where's your Motherland? From a recent correction in the New York Times: "An obituary last Wednesday about Frances Gershwin Godowsky, an artist and the sister of George Gershwin, misstated the nationality of her father-in-law, the pianist Leopold Godowsky. He was born outside Vilna, in an area that once belonged to Poland but was then part of Russia and is now in Lithuania; he was not Austrian."

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We don't want to be picking on newspapers, but here are a few head-turning headlines compiled by the Columbia Journalism Review: